A very necessary and integral part of everyday business, no matter what type of business it may be, is sending and receiving information. Generally, information is passed along in one of a few ways. Information may be passed along verbally, very often via telephone lines. Information may also be passed along electronically via computers with modems, or in a similar manner.
If information is passed along in a conversation, there is no record of the information unless notes are taken. If the information is passed between computers, then a record copy of the information may be produced for example either on a hard disk or on paper.
Another common form of sending and receiving information is on a printed page, which ensures that there is a written record of the information being transmitted. Much of the information sent by printed page is sent by postal services, which generally provide fairly inexpensive and reasonably expedient service. Regular mail service may take a few days while a special delivery type of service may take only one day--or even less--to deliver printed information, such as a letter or the like. An increased speed of postal service has associated with it a correspondingly increased cost, however.
In any case, mail delivery is not immediate, and most likely is not even to occur on the same day that it is sent. It is possible, however, to have more expedient delivery of packages by other similar means such as a courier service. Such courier services are generally more expensive and still take at least several hours, if not most of the day or even a full day, to deliver printed material. In some cases, this is an unacceptable time between the time that printed information is sent and the time that it is received. The time between sending and receiving is obviously increased if the origin and the destination of the printed matter are a great distance apart--and it is quite common to have the origin and destination several thousand miles apart.
One advantage to some forms of mail or courier delivery service is that a very secure type of delivery service is available--at an increased cost--in that the printed matter being sent is virtually guaranteed to arrive safely at its destination. Such a secure type of delivery usually involves written registration of the printed material so that it may be tracked from its origin, along its route and to its destination. For some information, it is quite important that such a secure means of delivery be employed.
In any event, printed material is almost always sent in a protective cover--such as an envelope--to protect the printed material from damage and also to help maintain the confidentiality of the information contained in the printed material.
In the past few years, another means for transmitting information that results in a printed copy of the information at the destination has been developed and made readily available to businesses. Such a means is the facsimile machine, or fax. A facsimile machine, in its most common form, scans a paper document and develops an electronic representation of the document. This electronic representation is turned into an electronic signal, and is then transmitted over telephone lines from a sending facsimile machine to a receiving facsimile machine. The receiving facsimile machine receives the electronically transmitted signal and decodes it back into an electronic representation of the paper document. It then reproduces a copy of the original document.
Unfortunately, a facsimile paper output from a receiving machine must first be read, or at least in part, so that it can be determined who the facsimile is for. Moreover, the confidentiality and security afforded to printed matter by envelopes, which are universally used in sending printed matter by mail or courier or the like, is not afforded to the output from facsimile machines. Thus, there is a lack of security associated with sending documents via facsimile machines because anyone at a receiving facsimile machine may read the facsimile paper output being printed by a receiving facsimile machine. Even if a cover page is used with a facsimile machine transmission, this only identifies who the printed facsimile paper output is addressed to, but does not preclude anyone else from having access to the facsimile paper output.
In order to provide some sort of security in terms of precluding any persons from reading a printed facsimile paper output who is not authorized to do so, it may be necessary to lock the facsimile machine away in a closet or room. This is generally completely unacceptable and only works if the closet or room is locked or guarded. Alternatively, it is possible to have someone watch over the facsimile machine and to distribute the received facsimiles to the appropriate person. This is undesirable since it is poor use of a person's time. It is also possible to have the person who is receiving the facsimile watch the output from the facsimile machine. This is also generally unacceptable since very often the person to whom the facsimile printed output is directed cannot watch over the machine. Indeed, it can be envisioned that several people could be standing at a facsimile machine at any given time, each waiting for a confidential facsimile to be received.
It has been observed, however, that people who are expecting to receive a facsimile of a sensitive or confidential nature will huddle over a receiving facsimile machine until the facsimile paper output has been printed. Very often, this may be the president of a company whose time is indeed very valuable and which should not be spent in such a manner. Obviously, for people to act in such manner, the problem of having other persons read facsimile paper output transmissions is considered a very definite problem and a very definite risk.
In order to gain some measure of security, many people send and receive facsimiles during off-hours--when the person receiving the facsimile is generally the only one present. This does not always work, however, and facsimiles sent during off-hours may remain at the facsimile machine until the person who is to receive the facsimile actually collects it. In this case, there is no measure of security.
Indeed, it is believed that it is becoming an ever increasing occurrence in business for some people to arrive at the office early in order to go through any facsimiles received during the night, thus creating a definite security risk.
Typically, confidential or sensitive material contained in printed paper documents are still sent by mail or courier and are not sent by facsimile, for the reason of lack of security.